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kripkenstein notes an analysis up on TechRepublic detailing how Microsoft beat Linux in China, and the consequences of that victory: "With the soon-to-be largest economy standardized on Windows desktops, desktop Linux does seem to have an uphill battle ahead of it." "Linux has turned out to be little more than a key bargaining chip in a high stakes game of commerce between the Chinese government and the world's largest software maker... The fact that... Linux failed to gain a major foothold in China is yet another blow to desktop Linux. After nearly eight years of being on the verge of a breakthrough, Linux seems more destined than ever to be a force in the server room but little more than a narrow niche and an anomaly on the desktop."

Whoa, Nelly! This article - and the discussion here - is rife with untested assumptions. Let's establish a bit of context here before going too far.

Microsoft beat Linux? That most certainly is how Microsoft sees the situation. But their entire ethos is of conquest, control and coercion. None of these apply to Linux. While it's true that some have used Linux as a tool to gain leverage with Microsoft, Linux as an operating system has no goal, except to be good at what it does. Unlike Microsoft, Linux is not controlled by any single actor, or even by a like-minded group of actors.

Linux doesn't fight Microsoft (though MS does fight Linux and FOSS in general). It just keeps improving for its own sake and for the sake of its users. If that has detrimental effects on Microsoft's control of the operating systems market - and it does - well, that is nothing more than a collateral benefit.

So, from Microsoft's perspective, maybe they did 'beat' Linux, but even that defeat isn't complete or permanent. When China donates PCs to its development partners, what OS does it ship? Linux. Is Red Flag dead and buried? No. Is China dependant on Microsoft for its IT infrastructure? Hardly.

What price victory? A more honest evaluation of the circumstances of China's decision to accept Microsoft at all shows that Microsoft's 'victory' may be more pyrrhic than anything. With trademark deftness, China has largely de-fanged one of the most effective and brutal corporate negotiating teams in the world. This is the corporation that managed to buy off the US government and avoid any real punishment following its conviction for abuse of monopoly powers. It's the company that has consistently and rather successfully thumbed its nose at the European Union, the largest economic entity in the world today. It has controlled standards processes, locked in countless corporations and ruthlessly dominated the supply chain world-wide.

Yet Chinese negotiators got everything they asked for. Price reductions? They pay about 10% of what other governments do per seat. Control? They not only have access to the source code, they have to right to alter it to suit their purposes.

Think about what that means to the Chinese. In economic, political and strategic terms, they've negotiated unprecedented access to an invaluable resource, and they've done it in a way that costs them next to nothing. Truth be told, Microsoft got almost nothing out of this deal. China still uses Linux whenever and wherever it wants.

A deal that would make Stallman laugh. If we think about the Four Freedoms that underlie the GPL, the same four freedoms for which Richard Stallman and the FSF have fought so desperately to support and preserve, the same freedoms that are so perfectly antithetical to everything that Microsoft stands for... these are exactly the freedoms that China has preserved in its deal with Microsoft.

Let's be honest here: Microsoft may have won the battle, but only by utterly compromising itself and its future in China. They have placed themselves in a virtually abject position vis à vis China. Happily, the Chinese know enough about loss of face to ensure that they never rub this in Gates' face.

Bottom line: This is not a Linux/Microsoft story. Linux is a bit player in this story, a Rosencrantz to Microsoft's Hamlet. The real story is how China managed to pull a classic con on one of the toughest negotiating teams in the corporate world, and how they did it so well that Microsoft keeps coming back for more.

And let me say, first, that MS obviously has a very strong position in the desktop market here. Windows is at least as ubiquitous here as it is in the States. But why would it ever be any other way? MS has millions of dollars to play with, cozy/exploitative relationships with most makers of PC's here, and a huge base of GAMES to draw Chinese users in. Chinese people love their video games, and 70% of internet users here are online for games (I got that from Harper's, I think...).Not to mention the fact

No. If you actually believe piracy is difficult in China then I have a proverbial bridge to cell. The bootleg seizures are a regular propaganda piece, they pop up in Western Media every six months or so. Pirated software and movies are everywhere, everybody knows it, and piracy sites operate freely [verycd.com] within the PRC.

Linux in China is the same as the US; nobody uses it except for a few nerds.

Except this year, they changed how they book those sales. In the past, they would spread 1/3 of the profits out over 3yrs. This year, they changed that to booking 100% of the profit at the time of the sale. Time will tell how this pans out, but it does not look like the moves of a strong company that is comfortable in its profit potential.

In an inflationary economy, every year is a record. Vista and Office 2007 should have made a difference but did not [theregister.co.uk]. Imagine a flat line, your brain and your balls are dying but non free CPR takes six years. The game is over - without money, they can't attract the programmers and vendor "support" they need to make product, and without product they will run out of money.

it's interesting to see their old policies coming back to bite them on this one.

microsoft leveraged their monopoly to make it impossible for customers for 6 years to get anything other than windows xp on a new computer. the result? customers think that a new computer means windows xp, and are deeply suspicious of change. now there's suddenly a new operating system none of their friends have. windows xp's main advantage was always its ubiquity. vista, due to being new, does not have this.

microsoft has told the customer for years that different=difficult. now they are reaping what they have sowed.

After nearly eight years of being on the verge of a breakthrough, Linux seems more destined than ever to be a force in the server room but little more than a narrow niche and an anomaly on the desktop.

That is exactly the problem with Linux. It's always almost ready dor the desktop. And it will always stay that way as long as there isn't a standard interface and and a good office suite that does MS'.doc format. Sad but true.

I'm beginning to think that the people in charge don't want t to be accepted. It is one of those fears that they will lose their importance of they don't need to fight anymore. There have been quite a few decisions lately and of past that just show this to me. They want something that they are in front of an not something in front of them.

It's been ready for my desktop for years; in fact I stopped dual booting with Windows a long time ago and haven't looked back. Almost every week I read about some critical thing I'm not supposed to be able to do with Linux (like deal with.doc files), even though I've been doing it without problem or fanfare all along. Did I not get the memo, or could it just be misinformation and FUD?

I'm still amazed at the crap my Windows friends put up with on a daily basis, but they just regard it as the cost of doing business with their OS, I guess...

I do the same as you, but I would never give up my crappy old laptop running Windows XP, because OpenOffice isn't absolutely bug-for-bug compatible with MS Office. I still have to go to the Windows machine occasionally to open a file.

The rest of the "not ready for the desktop" stuff people talk about is a bunch of red herrings. What's missing is not technical capabilities in the kernel, UI slickness in the applications, or games but the massive entrenchment that Microsoft relies on to make Windows look magical: OEM installs, reliable drivers provided by hardware vendors, and a decade of user familiarity. No amount of work on applications or task schedulers will ever begin to address those issues. Linux-on-the-desktop fans should look for ways around those problems instead of obsessing over programming.

To put it more concisely: Slashdotters are programmers; programming is the hammer; widespread desktop adoption of Linux is the problem; and no, it is not a nail.

Ready for the *home* desktop and ready for the office desktop are worlds apart, and because most (read: average user) would be more comfortable using the same OS at home that they do in the office, you're not going to see a change in the current market share. Did you miss the memo? Well, there was a memo that stated businesses aren't ready to adapt linux in the office for a large number of reasons. Least of which are application.

And don't forget the "enterprise" apps. To get rid of Windows where I work we need not just Office replaced, but OSI's PI System has to be ported over to Linux (or whatever), Emerson's Delta-V control system has to come over, the Yokogawa DCS has to come over (which ironically used to run on Unix, but they are now a Windows Certified Partner, which didn't stop them from losing a sale when Bill dropped the version of Frontpage which their data historian access system depended on, and they couldn't meet our e

That is exactly the problem with Linux. It's always almost ready dor the desktop

I don't understand why you see a "problem with Linux." Success for Linux isn't measured in "market share" or whether the Chinese government (a shining example of rational decision making if there ever was one) decides to standardize on pirated copies of Windows. It's very existence is it's "success." The fact that I have a choice to run a stable, powerful, free OS that just lets me get work done is it's success.

Linux has been ready for the desktop for years. I was using that other OS 8 years ago and had no end of trouble with it freezing, crashing and losing our data. I switched to Linux on the desktop and it has been relatively trouble-free ever since. I have introduced hundreds of students and teachers to Linux and very few had any trouble as newbies. They liked the fact that for no cost I could provide them systems with greatly improved performance. The idea that Linux is not ready must stem from propaganda or

That is exactly the problem with Linux. It's always almost ready dor the desktop. And it will always stay that way as long as there isn't a standard interface and and a good office suite that does MS'.doc format. Sad but true.

I think that with Linux completely or partially taking over in govt in Peru, Brazil, France, Largo (right around the corner from me in St Pete, FL), the Dept of Transportation (or the FAA?), etc, it's doing pretty well.

There is NO reason for the average home user to install a completely new OS they've never seen. The hurdle for Linux is to get on enough work PCs that people are relatively comfortable enough with it, so that next virus they get, or next Norton Death Knell, they leap off their burning Windows install onto something stable.

For the 80% of "easy" cases where browsing/e-mail/word-processing are the important functions, there are several reasons to migrate:

they can run 2007 software on machines that run stuff released in 2001 or earlier and cannot run Vista

If Linux could run Windows executables and other windows type extensions

That will always require jumping through some hoops. Windows software expects a Windows environment, with a registry, drive letters and the Windows filesystem hierarchy. Running Windows applications will require some conversion, not only from Win32 calls to native calls, but an emulation of the registry and other Windows peculiarities.

WINE does not "wrap" the Widnows API it is a complete implementation of it.The Win32 API is not completely documented. Microsoft never has released all of the information which ensures that, push come to shove, they will be able to write code that will out perform most lucrative applications if they decide to squeeze the innovator out.

The real problem is all technical. It is trivial to write code that has the same functionality but does not violate Microsoft patents. I know that Microsoft would like peop

I didn't mean to suggest that WINE implements the Win32 API completely. I mean that it is not a wrapper but a implementation of the code. Completely being used to mean that it doesn't use any Windows code.

To see for myself I opened the same MS Word 2003 document in its native MS Word and in OO 2.2.0 that I have installed. The result is that MS Word shows the final text (colored as needed) in the page area and the changes in the margin area (titled "Deleted:...", "Formatted:..." and so on.) The OO made no notes on margins, and instead put all the changes, massive deletions and stuff in the main body of the document, so I see page after page after page of d

Let's look at the big picture here of Microsoft monopolizing the Chinese desktop market. The US trade deficit with China is $233 billion. If, in several years, there are (say) 1 billion computers in China, and each pays $100 for Microsoft products (Windows, Office, OneCare, who knows what else by then), then Microsoft will be responsible for $100 billion going in the opposite direction than the $233 billion. That is, Microsoft's income from China will be about the same order as that of the entire trade deficit.

(Of course there are many assumptions and guesses here - I don't think this is a serious economic prediction. But it does show the general idea.)

Two conclusions:

There is massive motivation for the US government to bolster Microsoft in any way possible. Don't expect any antitrust lawsuits in the US any time soon.

China's adoption of Microsoft products may be temporary. Other nations have done it in the past - adopt Western ways, modernize their economies using them, and then replace those technologies with their own (e.g., Japan and the auto market). China sees Microsoft as the quickest way to modernize their computer industry. But, especially as a central authoritative government, they can change strategy later on, when the 'Microsoft Tax' becomes a burden.

Read the article again more carefully. The maximum price outside multinationals will be $3; nothing near $100. Most people will be permitted to "pirate". The lesson from this is that the only way to negotiate with MS is to have a serious and already deployed Linux strategy. RedFlag remains crucial to China's bargaining. If you country doesn't have it's own RHEL based Linux distribution, it's time to start asking for explanations.

> They can change strategy later on, when the 'Microsoft Tax' becomes a burden.

Someday the Geek may lose his fascination with talk of the "Microsoft Tax."

Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft's best long-term strategy. That's why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China's 120 million PCs. "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," Gates says. "Are you kidding? You can get the real thing, and you get the sa

2) Payment to Microsoft doesn't go the USA. It goes to Microsoft's investments and business in China. China (or any other country) isn't going to to pay another country for bits that can be copied for free, unless they get something back.

To me it's quite obvious that the Chinese regime clearly has seen the problem with free software that would make public control much harder. Now they just have to call MS and say "Hey, people are using bittorrent to download porn!" and it will be fixed in the next update.

I seriously doubt the Chinese are going to $100/person. In fact, most likely, using Linux as a bargaining chip, they probably negotiated that down to a few bucks per copy, at most. And the Chinese user population is much smaller than one billion anyway.

Also, it's wrong to assume that this money is going to make it to the US; it's likely paid to the Chinese subsidiary, and China is going to make sure that that gets spent in China as much as possible.

It's damned well time that we install a government that will protect the American consumer

Who is this we? I can't remember the last time that voting Americans installed a government that really gave two shits about the American people. And as far as protecting the American consumer, shit, not in this republic. In this republic the slogan is "Cash rules everything around me." Like George W Bush gives 2 shits about the American consumer.

Your salary estimate is a little high. Many in China make $200-$300 a month. Here is a chart of average salaries [abroadchina.org] in Chinese yuan. For example, the chart shows that an urban worker makes an average, at the national level, of about 897.56 RMB a month which in USD is $118.69 a month! Cost of living is low so they can afford food, housing, etc. However, they could never afford even to spend $50 USD (378.10 Chinese yuan) on an MS Windows/MS Office combo. That is almost half of their monthly income.

Agree $3 is better than $0. They already have their cash cow now. If they can squeeze any more money it's just gravy. Plus China has the largest population. If you can get $3 out of 1billion people that's still $3billion for nothing more than pressing more CD's. Plus it's not the OS that they are selling but the opportunity for op sales, we'll pitch in X-package for just $2 more.

I fail to see what battle has played out in China. For all i know Microsoft has always had the biggest marketshare in China too. Linux can still gain on Windows, especially when Microsoft soon enough starts taxing for licenses. Its one thing to run things for free, another when a country of Chinas size have to pay through their noose. Also if i wore China i would be very afraid of running an OS from the US, soon to be a bitter tradewar enemy.
This isnt over just yet.

If Linux wins out in the end it will be in part for this reason. You can examine it for backdoors, concealed reporting etc, which you cannot do with a proprietary closed source OS. I have no doubt that if it was asked by the NSA to include that sort of thing in its product offerings to China, MS would be willing to comply. What company would be willing to rely on the goodwill of a foreign, potentially hostile or at least rival government's goodwill, when it can develop its own operating system and include these features itself and under its own control?

Do the Chinese citizens all have access to the source code? Didn't think so. With how abusive both the US's and PRC's governments are, I'm surprise either citizens can trust proprietary software from spying on them.

It exists, and it is more than GPL violating too.When I saw it running a few years back (Chinese version) it was an extreamly shoddy red hat fork with KDE as the desktop and blatantly ripped-off windows 2000 icons. It was trying hard to pass off as windows 2000, but also there was no root password, user ran as root by default, and it seemed that some services...actually most of them, were running by default.

The Chinese government wishes to control the use of the Internet and of computers. The Linux community is hardly likely to help China take control of computers away from the users. But with Trusted Computing, Microsoft may be able to offer exactly that capability.

For a government concerned about control, Microsoft's obvious motivations (control and profit) may be both more familiar, more predictable - and because Microsoft is centralized, mor tractable. This in comparison to the diverse coalition of interests making up the free and open source community.

Being dependent on an outside source of software and putting their infrastructure in the hands of a western company are both unappealing. This was the original impetus for Red Flag Linux itself.

You're absolutely right, both about the motivations and benefits of maintaining independece from Microsoft. However, I have a suspicion that to the government hierarchy in China (and equally for many corporations everywhere), free and open source software may also appear to be outside their control. It's an al

China is so complicated and so tragic. The control of the central government there is weakening. Much of the evil in China is a consequence of that loss of control. Recently, for example, up to 53,000 slave workers [opendemocracy.net] were discovered in the brick industry Shanxi province. That's 50,000 pepole in one industry in one province. The central government doesn't want this. Nor does it sanction the kidnapping and mutilation of children used as beggars, or the sale of women i

``"With the... largest economy standardized on Windows desktops, desktop Linux does seem to have an uphill battle ahead of it."''Has it ever been any different?

Eventually, people will choose what they choose for their own reasons. Network effects can be one of these reasons, and Microsoft still has that one covered for now. However, Linux has its own benefits compared to Windows. Some of these will always be there.

Who would have thought, in the mid 1990s, that Linux would get this big? Perhaps it will get

``The fact that... Linux failed to gain a major foothold in China is yet another blow to desktop Linux. After nearly eight years of being on the verge of a breakthrough, Linux seems more destined than ever to be a force in the server room but little more than a narrow niche and an anomaly on the desktop.''

Oh, come on. Just as those who have been proclaiming, the past few years, that whatever year it happened to be would be the year of Linux on the desktop were to early to proclaim victory, this is a bit too early to proclaim defeat.

I seem to recall something about one of the world's largest PC vendors starting to ship systems with Linux pre-installed. Does that sound like "a narrow niche and an anomaly on the desktop"? To me, it sounds more like one step on the road to being a recognized and respected operating system.

So, in a country governed by a surpressive regime which wishes to controll and monitor it citizen's as much as possible, a proprieatry closed system controlled by a centralised body is standard software rather than a free open system with an ideological emphasis on the freedoms of the users. Doesn't sound to surprising does it ? Now the real WTF is that the democratic world is using it as well...

I'd say the real WTF is that we're talking about China, with its oppressive government, human rights violations, not to mention everyone finally realizing that the quality of Chinese manufacturing extends to its food exports as well...and somehow we give a shit about what OS they're using?

Unless the Chinese government outlaws linux and alternative OS, its only a matter of time for world wide open source software to improve beyond what microsoft can produce. Note, I said "Open Source Software" which is a wider base than the "Linux Kernel".

But for this to be promoted as Victory of MS vs. Linux. Certainly it is a hype, as GNU/linux continues to replace Microsoft products in governments around the world. Before GNU/Linux what was the option?

Sooooo, in the bigger picture, MS has been down graded from a sure thing, only option, to a need to announce and amplify the announcement of victory over the competition in specific cases.

You will not find MS announcing competitors victory over them and maybe not even teh same level of media coverage.

The fact that it took the open source software development model to create competition for microsoft, where all other MS competitors business models failed, says a lot as to what to expect of the future of open source software.

``These moves, coupled with building strong relationships within the Chinese government and opening a major research center in Beijing, completely changed Microsofts fortunes in China.'' (emphasis mine)

So it was good old favoritism. Buy a can of politicians, get one nation free!

This is why those with power should be watched and their use of said power closely scrutinized. Of course, there's no such thing going on in China.

So it was good old favoritism. Buy a can of politicians, get one nation free!

Well, of course it was! Back in 2000, Microsoft finally faced the facts about what it takes to maintain their position. That was when they suddenly became one of the largest "campaign contributors" to the US elections. And right after the election, the US government caved in their anti-trust suit against Microsoft, "settling" for an agreement that effectively promised a hands-off approach to all further Microsoft business methods

Well, let me give you my view from inside China. I'm living in Shanghai.Sure, favoritism is a big thing, guanxi has to be built. But that's just about the same everywhere, including the US (what do you think those lobbyists do in DC?), it just seems more obvious in China.

However, you have to give Microsoft credit for doing their homework, they invested in building that guanxi. Where are RH, Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva, and the gang? I don't see any. They don't even have an office here. Microsoft learned the rule

Of course you're right. It wasn't objectively easier. But it's not even "familiarity".Members of this forum are used to being called over to "Fix X." This involves User wringing hands in defeat, calling for help, glancing on in a partial attempt to learn about 20% of the fix, and then going back to work with the incident forgotten as long as it doesn't happen again.

There's a Deep-FUD effect going on with switching. If you have Windows, and get stuck, User shrugs and calls ComputerGuy over. But like playing

Wow, that is a really roundabout way to change the Windows boot loader settings. The proper way to do so is to go to Control Panel --> System --> Advanced (Tab) --> Startup and Recovery (section) Settings (button). That brings up a GUI dialog for setting up the boot loader (only allows you to choose default OS and set timeouts, not delete or edit OS entries) and has an "Edit" button to bring up boot.ini in a text editor.

I question the reliability of this article because obviously Dell would not be seeking to expand its production of Linux-based (Ubuntu) PCs if they did not believe there is a solid market. Linux and the BSDs have been (and are) ready for the desktop. Unfortunately, Microsoft's desktop market share is so vast that it will be more of a "chipping away" than a large scale migration from Windows to Linux on the desktop. Meanwhile I applaud efforts like Dell's and I hope for continued penetration of open sourc

This pattern of big companies getting chummy with oppressive governments is quite common. In the end, it doesn't matter that much. The fact that the Chinese managed to exert such pressure on Microsoft using Linux is already a win for Linux and a big loss for Microsoft. And in the long run, China will be free from Microsoft as Microsoft itself disappears.

In many countries it is a common business practice of giving "gifts" to the "right" people if you want to get something done. If you need a license in four months and not four years you bribe officials. Of course you don't do so in an obvious way but they reap your generosity anyway.

It's usually done through third parties that are hired and given a large operational budget.

Linux may be better for China but Microsoft money is better for some key officials.

i thought what MS is doing in China should be called "dumping". other software companies in China should be able to sue MS according to WTO rules.
$3 for a license would kill any domestic or international competitors.

They couldn't put Spyware in Linux - it's open source so people could just recompile, but with Microsoft's cooperation they could put it Windows. The WGA add-on the Microsoft sent in their 'Security Update' already tells Microsoft when you turn your computer on and off, your computers ID (combination of IP, BIOS, HDD volume #, windows product ids): enough to identify you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advan tage [wikipedia.org]

Given the Chinese Government's penchant for maintaining social order, this could b

Microsoft attempted a strategy of lowering prices for Windows/Office while pushing for anti-piracy action from the Chinese government. These efforts failed, repeatedly, and the end result according to this article is that Microsoft will sell Windows AND Office, combined for a price of $3.

If that if a victory I can't imagine what a defeat would look like. If they are going to get $3 per copy of Windows+Office Microsoft would be lucky to break even on the raw materials, packaging, and shipping. The thing is Microsoft can't afford to just break even, they have tens of thousands of employees, including many lawyers and accountants and sales people involved in pushing their products, plus the support staff for all of those employees. And for those that would say "well Microsoft is sitting on a huge war chest" this is correct, they aren't going to go out of business any time soon, but they also can't bleed money indefinitely and watch potential revenue streams dry up without their stock tanking.

It looks like their game plan in China is to sell their software at break even or a loss just to get people used to the idea of paying for it and hopefully maintain market share. I guess they could make a profit in 5-10 years assuming:
people in china get used to the idea of paying for their software AND they have the money to pay more in the future AND they are willing to do so AND a suitable alternative (desktop Linux) hasn't risen in popularity. Which to me sounds more like a pipe-dream than a game plan.

I wish Microsoft many more of these sorts of "victories" in the future. Though their shareholders may feel differently.

I thought large numbers of machines in China used the proprietary Loongson/Godson [wikipedia.org] series of processors (proprietary modified MIPS) for various reasons, the first of which I would see as to prevent operating systems not authorized by the Chinese govt from running (for example it might aid in their Great Firewall of China). Supposedly they are comparable to P4's but with a lower production cost, and is one less thing China has to import or license from foreign countries.

Microsoft cannot beat Linux anymore than it can beat mathematics. They are not competitors. Call it a "type mismatch", if you will.

The contest here is between the organization known as Microsoft and the organization known as the Chinese government. I do not necessarily disagree here about the winner, but it's important to be clear about who lost if Microsoft won.

My in-laws are Chinese, and they can't stand Microsoft. The wife won't even put money into a mutual fund if she knows Microsoft's in it. Father-in-law can't stand 'em, either, and both have tried several different versions of Linux. I personally find Windows irritating to deal with, and use OSX and Linux exclusively.

But they all came back to Windows, because there are Windows input methods and word processors for Simplified and Traditional Chinese that kick the pants off of anything available for Linux. The wife doesn't even care so much for Mac OSX compared to the one for Windows. And the fonts for Simplified Chinese in Fedora are mediocre at best, and awful at worst. Looking at a Google.cn search in Firefox on Ubuntu 7.04 is hideous even to my untrained eyes -- you see many characters missing, and the characters that are there look like a mish-mash of multiple fonts.

So, if you care about this issue, this is what needs to happen.

Go check out NJStar on Windows. Make something like that for Linux, but better.

Go check out how the Windows Simplified Chinese works, and put that there.

And steal some decent fonts for Linux and make sure your favorite distro has 'em.

This is one of those times where we need to recognize that the better product won. And the only thing for us to do is to make ours better.

Huh? As a graybeard I remember those horrible days where we got our OS from our hardware vendor, along with the "opportunity" to buy their crappy, proprietary, $10,000/seat applications. Further, as an application developer, I remember those dark, pre-Windows days when I had to test my software on reams of different hardware; it was not a good use of my time, but without a ubiquitous layer between my application and the hardware (any vendor's hardware), I had no choice. Counter to your assertion, I think Microsoft has played a major role in improving the life of people like me. Admittedly, they have gotten rich in the process; they weren't doing it out of altruism. But I do not begrudge them their profits. I gladly pay the "Microsoft tax", which is a pittance in the grand scheme of things, in return for the many benefits their efforts have afforded me.

Huh? As a graybeard I remember those horrible days where we got our OS from our hardware vendor, along with the "opportunity" to buy their crappy, proprietary, $10,000/seat applications.

Microsoft didn't kill that hateful environment.
Unix (and I suppose some others) did.
Remember the term "Open systems" from the early 1980s?
It was the reaction to the situation you describe.

Further, as an application developer, I remember those dark, pre-Windows days when I had to test my software on reams of different hardware; it was not a good use of my time, but without a ubiquitous layer between my application and the hardware (any vendor's hardware), I had no choice.

That too, wasn't Microsoft, but Unix and others.
Heck, even the microcomputers of the mid-1980s had serious operating systems
like AmigaDOS, RiscOS, Unix dialects...
Is your beard really gray?

I think you're fooling yourself. Various flavors of Unix certainly played some role in driving standardization in hardware but Windows deserves the lionshare of the credit. Before Windows (or DOS...) there was no high-volume, mainstream OS that ran on commodity hardware. Love 'em or hate 'em but MSFT had the business sense to build and license their OS to anybody who wanted to use it. The result was a huge amount of innovation in hardware devices and software that worked with Windows. I'm not arguing that W

CP/M high volume? RIIIIIIIGHT.
Show me the long list of hardware and software for the Amiga and then compare that list to what was available for Windows. No comparison. The Mac has a slightly better story but the variety of hardware devices and apps pales in comparison.
I guess "shit" is in the eye of the beholder. I'd rather have had shitty old Windows that runs on thousands of different hardware platfoms and runs tens of thousands of apps than an Amiga that ran basically nothing.
By the way, I've owned

I think the word I used was ubiquitous, not "serious". The fact that millions of machines from scores of hardware vendors could run my applications, and I didn't have to test on each and every variant, is what I meant by ubiquitous. People bring up CPM, and Unix, and others, but only Windows achieved broad-based support across many different vendors' hardware. Sure, any of the others *might* have been better, or *could* have been the winner, but the simple fact remains that Windows won the race, and people

I would guess that 'laughingcoder' is talking about desktop hardware systems for professional CAD engineering in the mid 1980's to late 1990's. In these cases, the application developer would actually certify workstations (both UNIX workstations and PC's with $1000 graphics (de)accelerators), and you could only buy such a system from a licensed dealer. At this time, the UNIX vendors would charge thousands of $$$$ just to get a basic compiler, and even more for the optimised libraries and GUI API's.Needless

I'm going to have to disagree with that. Overall, yes, MS makes money from their products - that's what companies do.They have pretty well set the desktop standard and pretty much anyone that uses a computer can sit down at most any workstation and accomplish a task. That is a hell of a benefit. Unfortunately, it comes with a monopoly that makes it harder for other OS vendors to enter the market.

Personally, I've been running linux and bsd machines for the past 10 years. Everybody is running their own deskto

That's funny, I could swear that I've made a lot of money over the past twelve years using their software. I also know a *lot* of other people who have as well. And any number of companies who have enabled their business processes and models with Microsoft software, and thus enabled them to prosper as well*. So unless you mean "Microsoft has also made a lot of money from their clients" I must conclude that you have your reality distortion field turned up a bit too high.

I have gone through the Microsoft era, Unix era, Open Source era, Java era, and so on. YES I am a gray beard like the original grand parent poster. And if there is one thing that Microsoft has learned and keeps on propagating is that you can make money with Microsoft. This is not something to treat lightly.

I will give you another example; AutoCad. They are essentially the last standing CAD software. Yes there are others, but none as popular as AutoCad. Why? Well one reason is that you could copy it. BUT another bigger reason was that from day 1 AutoCad could be extended so that you could add value to AutoCad. AutoCad created an environment where people could prosper and thus secured their place in history.

Open Source did get one thing right in that they solved problems that people were having. Open Source did not focus on features. What Open Source got wrong is making money for people. The environment around Open Source is a cheapskate environment. Redhat offered Fedora because people stopped buying Redhat Linux. People did not buy software, and to this day still don't buy software. You have more people using for free than adding to the ecosystem, and that hurts!

Yes there are big companies using and supporting Linux. BUT add together the economies around Microsoft and I would not hesitate to use trillions of dollars. First you have Microsoft, then you have people selling software for Windows, then you have consultancies supporting Windows, then you have custom coders for Microsoft, then you have conferences, then you have trainers, etc, etc. It is an incredibly HUGE ecosystem that is profitable for everybody involved.

If you look at the latest incomes of the Open Source vendors it is down right disappointing after a decade of potential. For crying out loud Ubuntu is the result of a guy who made his money with something else and is supporting Ubuntu because he wants to have fun!

If Linux and Open Source REALLY want to beat Microsoft, then Open Source folks should STOP BEING DAMM CHEAPSKATES! I am sure everybody is capable of forking over 50 USD per year. If we use a conservative number of 1 million users world wide that would mean 50 million dollars income and that would mean a heck of a lot programmers could be hired to solve those darn user interface problems!

Do I buy and support software? Absolutely, as a matter of principle because I earn my money from software.

Well, I actually would agree with you that there is less money in open source software. However, I think this indicates not a failing of open source, but of commercial development. I agree with you that the commercial software ecosystem is very vibrant, with great profit potential. But I view this as a drain on the rest of the economy. Just think about how many web startups are using a LAMP stack... would their businesses be possible in a purely commercial software world?

I'm not looking to see the software industry destroyed, or even crippled, since I hope to soon get a job developing software. I think there is money in development on demand, where developers make money for their labor in custom-tailoring software to a customer's demand. The software would be free, but of course the labor wouldn't.

Now, this kind of business won't thrive in current climates, because there is more money and easier money in commercial software. But eventually free software will dominate, because in the long term how can something be more attractive than free? Of course there is support to think of, but I don't see any inherent reason that free software should be more expensive to support.

So I think that whether we like it or not, free software is the future. And I choose to see that as a positive future, where software becomes more pervasive in our environment, more adapted to our specific needs.

There'll always be money in software development until we create machines that are smarter than us in every way.

If you look at the latest incomes of the Open Source vendors it is down right disappointing after a decade of potential. For crying out loud Ubuntu is the result of a guy who made his money with something else and is supporting Ubuntu because he wants to have fun!

So what? Why should I care what his motives are. And don't tell me that it's because the survival of Ubuntu is subject to his whims. It's open source.

Suppose that this is not *about* security - it could be about the very deepest concept of computing. If some pivotal series of events occurs, and the world flips to Linux/BSD/other, then the very deepest root of computing will never again be fully captured by a proprietary company.On the other side, if China decides to lock into Windows, with MS feeding them free versions FOREVER, MS could use that as a rim shot to continue to drag inter-OS compatibility down. ($3? That's not a software price, that's a ship

Being a Linux/OS X user myself, and having just spent the last 2 hours setting up Ubuntu Gutsy Tribe III on my MacBook Pro, I feel that it's not quite ready to compete with OS X yet. Though, a considerable amount of what you said was factually inaccurate.

Cutting and pasting a table from Excel into Word requires that both applications agree on what the format of that data will be

Gross oversimplification. The real difficulty is what happens after one of the applications is closed. This post explains how the W